Job-Site IT Failure Checklist for Surrey & Lower Mainland Trades Crews

A. Personal devices holding company work

• Quotes, job photos, panel labels, or marked-up drawings live on a personal phone or laptop
• Someone else cannot get those files if that person is on another site, on vacation, or gone
• No company enrollment or remote-wipe plan for devices that hold client data

B. Backup of job files

• Drawings, permits, warranty photos, and quotes have a copy that survives a lost phone or dead laptop
• Backup is not only the same laptop, a USB in the glove box, or one person’s private folder
• Office and field agree where the current folder lives

C. Job-site file access

• An authorized person on a Surrey or Lower Mainland site can open the current folder without emailing files around or texting JPEG schedules
• The office is not leaving RDP or the shop network wide open just for a quick PDF
• Change orders and revisions reach the crew the same day they are updated

D. Support model (break/fix vs watched systems)

• You know who to call when email or the shop network is down
• Someone is monitoring and patching between emergencies, not only after downtime
• A morning of idle crews after an outage would cost more than a quiet month of managed coverage

E. This week’s 4 questions

1. Where do today’s drawings and permit photos live — shop folder, personal phone, or both?
2. If that phone or laptop disappeared tonight, what isn’t copied somewhere else?
3. Can an authorized person on a Surrey job site open the current folder without emailing files around?
4. Who do you call when email or the shop network is down — and is anyone watching those systems between calls?

If two or more answers make the owner uneasy, book an assessment. That is a judgment call, not a score.

What does a useful managed plan cover?

1. Help desk the crew can reach in business hours
2. Backup for job files
3. Secure access from site without opening the office to the world
4. Monitoring and patching between emergencies

That is the shape of managed IT for electrical contractors in Surrey and the Lower Mainland. The MSP vs break/fix comparison explains when a monthly plan is the better fit.